This disclosure relates generally to evaluating energy performance of a building, a building system, and/or a collection of buildings locally or over a large geographic area.
Existing energy and greenhouse gas measurement and verification protocols rely on walk around and observe audits that are defined in, for example, International Standards Organization (ISO) 50001, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Level 1 audits, ASHRAE Level 2 audits, and the like. These rely on static analytics and do not produce accurate results.
Another example of existing energy protocols is the U.S. EPA's Energy Star® program. The Energy Star® program has developed energy performance rating systems for several commercial and institutional building types and manufacturing facilities. These ratings, on a scale of 1 to 100, provide a means for benchmarking the energy efficiency of specific buildings and industrial plants against the energy performance of similar facilities of the same space type, based on a national average. A rating can be generated for ratable space types based on building attributes, such as square footage, weekly operating hours, and monthly energy consumption data. The Energy Star® ratings rely on static analytics, estimates, and forecasting, and do not produce accurate results and can be difficult to verify.
As a result of the lack of accurate and consistently reliable measurement and verification standards, false claims of carbon credits, Negawatts (energy saved as a result of energy conservation or increased efficiency), and other energy reductions are being made. Further, the lack of accurate and consistent energy assessment makes it difficult to accurately determine the benefit of corrective actions to equipment and systems, to normalize energy conservation investments, to calculate paybacks from energy conservation investments and retrofits of buildings, and the like.